


Creature of Earth

by thesometimeswarrior



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, First Time Gem Fusion, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28202421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: “What…” she says, reaching for her hair, her waist, her face. “Did we…Rose, I think we…Pearl,we did it!I…?Idid it…? I did it.”The last words are whispers, something else borrowed from humans, this understanding that some reverent quiet is owed to holy ground, and that is what this has become.
Relationships: Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	Creature of Earth

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended as something as a late PearlRose week submission. I’m not generally a big shipper--and while I am very interested in the PearlRose dynamic, I more frequently am wont to deconstruct than anything else. But I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Rainbow, and what she might have said about Pearl and Rose individually, and about their relationship, so this was a fun piece to write!

It’s halfway through the War when they finally manage it, in about as inconspicuous a moment as any. The base buzzes with the type of elation that only seems to come after a victory, so something of an impromptu party seems to have taken root throughout the ranks, and the two of them are eager to join their compatriots.

“And we will, my— _Rose_ ,” Pearl promises. “As soon as we settle the details of how we—how _you_ —are going to make your next check-in with Yellow and Blue—”

“Yes, yes, I _know_ , Pearl, but—”

But then Rose stops short. In the center of their encampment, someone—Snowflake, perhaps?—starts singing, and the music wafts into Rose’s quarters. It’s a different type of song than the ones that Pearl sang on Homeworld, nothing like those dainty little ditties praising the Empire, or the Diamond Authority, or individual Diamonds themselves. No, those were melodies meant to be performed, for glory, for homage—and this is not that. This more resembles that ritual they’d witnessed when they’d happened upon that human settlement several sun-cycles ago: a group of individuals all singing together, not to pay homage to anyone in particular, but rather as though the song itself was something to _share_ collectively, and share it they all did.

And they’d danced too, those humans. Again, in such a wildly different way than anything they’d ever seen, something that seemed so much like the Earth itself. There had been no choreography. Just people swaying together to music, responding to it organically like the organics they were, sometimes on their own, sometimes in large groups, and sometimes in pairs of two, each holding the other close…

And then before Pearl is aware of what’s happening, Rose reaches for her hand, and all the solemnity fades from Pearl’s face. She grips Rose’s hand in return, and they each pull the other close, spin to Snowflake’s distant voice. Rose grins, starry-eyed, and Pearl blushes, and then laughs, and then for an instant nothing matters—not the check-in, not the War, not their histories or former lives—nothing but this, the music, this moment, these movements, them together, right here on this planet…and then…

And suddenly there’s only one person spinning where only an instant previously two Gems had been.

“What…” she says, reaching for her hair, her waist, her face. “Did we…Rose, I think we…Pearl, _we did it_! _I_ …? _I_ did it…? I did it.”

The last words are whispers, something else borrowed from humans, this understanding that some reverent quiet is owed to holy ground, and that is what this has become. And then she falls wholly silent, not because she doesn’t have anything to say, nor because she feels ashamed to say it, but rather because she doesn’t need to give voice to anything for it to be comprehended. Both— _all_ parts of her already understand everything she would utter before she articulates it well enough for it to reach her lips.

And one such notion is that she suddenly wants, _needs_ , to be outside with all that is constantly changing on the planet. She paces out the back of Rose’s quarters into the cool pre-dawn air, and no one sees her. Her gait is as gossamer as those of her two component parts, and she’s far enough away from the center of the base where the rest of the troops are entrenched in their party. Not even Larimar, presently on guard duty, notices as she wanders into the forest.

Around her, things bloom, grow, flower—roses and hibiscus and so many countless others—grass, trees, they all burst into being in real time, changing in every instant as the planet turns. Insects and birds—more of the whimsical creatures who live and grow here—buzz and chirp around her. The planet spinning on its axes also creates the illusion that the sun swings across the sky, and as it does, it changes too. Its color transforms from pink to orange to yellow, to finally bright white, and all the creatures of Earth that surround her seem to change their appearance—or at least their shades—in response to it.

She thinks: _I don’t want anyone to see us—me?—like this._

_Because I’m ashamed?_

_No. Because we’re at war. Because I don’t want this, us, us together, me, to become a weapon. I want this always to be beautiful._

_I’m beautiful._

It’s a novel thought. She blinks at it.

Eventually, she settles by a lake, folds her legs delicately to sit next to it and peers inside. As the sun streaks across the sky, the colors change in the water, and there’s a moment when some creature—is that a frog?—skips across, splashing little droplets into the air. They catch the sunlight, and when they do create little ephemeral bursts of color, which change before they dissipate.

_This is beautiful._

_So much on Earth is beautiful._

One day, she will no longer hide. One day, she will even flaunt her existence. In thousands of years, after the War is over, or at least transformed into an ongoing containment mission, when her army is dwindled down to just four of them, when she’s dealt with more loss than she ever expected to (though for part of her, there will be more to come), when the Diamonds have withdrawn from Earth for what she'll think is for good, she will appear in the mouth of their temple base outside of Beach City. She will once again move to the music, and Greg’s jaw will drop. In a way, she will suppose that that is itself a type of weaponization. 

But it will be different. It won’t because she is subversive. No one will bat an eyelash at the caste differences between her component parts—Greg will have no idea, and Amethyst will hardly have any idea, and Garnet will have some idea but not of how drastic a class division she actually contains—and regardless such things will have long since ceased to matter. She will flaunt herself with pride, and she will be nothing more and nothing less than exactly who she is in that moment.

And that won’t be the first time she shows herself. Amethyst will meet her before that, when they teach her about fusion. And even prior, millennia before, just a few years from now, she’ll show herself to Garnet, who will beam. Garnet will tell her to provide a name, and she will find she that already has an answer to give.

For now, though, she gazes into the lake. The changing sun with its changing colors catches her gemstones in her reflection, and her eyes fall on them for the first time. They’re both iridescent like Pearl’s, casting off multitudes of different hues in different moments, changing like water that splashes into the air, like the frogs, the birds, the trees, like the humans, like so much on Earth…

 _Rainbow_ , she thinks.

_Rainbow Diamond?_

But she knows before she formulates the thought that that’s wrong. Pink Diamond tried, but _she_ could never form her. No, she’s made up of Pearl, and of someone else entirely.

“No,” she says aloud. “Rainbow _Quartz_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I love comments!


End file.
